Salmon & Corn Chowder
I'm posting some perfect meals to help celebrate the holidays. We don't have to wait until Christmas Eve to put something beautiful on the dinner table. When my daughter was young, we celebrated an element of Christmas every Friday night in December! I created a theme, and we learned new things ... and enjoyed a special meal. You don't have to have kids in the household to celebrate through the whole winter! Continue to use your skills and talents to celebrate! Enjoy your passions.
A plank of salmon makes a beautiful special meal presentation, and most supermarkets carry the frozen variety. They are so easy to prepare. You can grill them, broil them, bake them or steam them. This half salmon was roasted in the oven. You can thaw the fish in the fridge overnight or simply float the packaged fish in cold water for a couple hours. Don’t remove the fish from the package because you don’t want it to absorb water.
Depending on how you prefer your salmon, the timing
changes. A one-pound slab takes about
twenty minutes at 375 degrees to be done.
Some folks like their salmon rare. I don’t! I place my fish … skin side down, sprinkle
with a little salt and pepper and for this recipe, I add a sprinkle of red
pepper flakes.
At the halfway point in cooking, I add the cran-apple glaze to the top of the fish. Here’s the recipe for the glaze. It is also easy to make.
1 peeled and
chopped red or yellow delicious apple
1 cup of fresh
cranberries
1 tiny candy apple
onion, chopped
1 stalk of tender
celery
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup of raspberry
infused vinegar or apple cider vinegar
½ cup of water
Simmer the ingredients until the sauce thickens. Serve it warm with the roasted salmon. If you have any left, refrigerate it and use
it later to top cream cheese or brie for an appetizer with crackers.
I completed this meal with roasted vegetables and shrimp, sauteed in butter.
I’m a food historian by hobby. I’ve spent years researching the foodways of
many cultures. As I detailed in my
introduction to my 2024 food project “Timelines”, I’m focusing on recipes and
techniques that come to me through the Appalachians.
We’ll begin my 2024 journey by talking about
soup. From the time that cave dwellers
who had just discovered fire cooked broth in an animal hide bag by dropping
stones heated in the fire into the broth … to this time of the instant pot …
soup has been a part of every food culture.
Soup certainly evolved as cooking vessels improved, but it has also
evolved as agriculture has progressed.
Early soups may have only held broth and natural herbs for flavor. Today, I couldn’t begin to make a list of the
things available to me to create delicious soups. Just think of the packaged flavorings, noodles
and pastas, fresh, dried and frozen vegetables, dried herbs and so much more.
The Bible speaks of soup, called pottage. The recipe books written in medieval times
listed soops. The first cookbook printed in America in 1742 included
recipes for soup. By the mid-1800s,
scores of soup recipes were included in cookbooks, even though many of them
were copied from one book to another.
As I studied the history of soups and the agriculture
in my ancestral homes of Scotland, Ireland and Germany … I found many
similarities. All three food cultures
started with broth, then came bread dunkers.
This is likely where the word ‘sop’ comes from! You’ll find creamy potato soups and mixed
vegetable soups in the earliest of recipes.
My favorite similarity is kale. In 1984, I owned a restaurant, and we bought
cases of kale to use to line the salad bar.
Today, 40 years later I buy kale to eat on a regular basis. I add it to soup, just like my ancestors did. History tells us that when they only had
broth, they often added kale to the soup pot to add nutrients, texture and to
make it more filling.
Winter squash makes a wonderful creamy soup. We learned as children that the Native
Americans who greeted our colonial settlers taught them how to grow squash,
beans and corn. I suppose they taught
them how to cook them, too. I’ve always
thought that our colonists should have known how to prepare those foods because
they weren’t just grown in America!
Squash dates to the first century in the historic Mesopotamia
region. It was carried all over the
world by explorers.
Here are a few of my small batch soups. I’ve used some shortcuts and I encourage you to do the same. Use my recipes but make them your own. Switch ingredients and experiment with flavors. Approach your cooking not as a science, but as an artform. Create a masterpiece!
Winter Vegetable Soup
Soup preparation depends upon the seasonal produce available. In the depth of cold weather, we are blessed with winter root vegetables. I can buy them at the indoor farmers market, and at my house, turnips top the list. Root vegetables are shelf stable. Store them in a cool, dry place.
Cream of Broccoli and Potato Soup
The ingredients in this soup can be adjusted, but
you’ll need 4 cups of vegetables in total.
I like more potatoes than broccoli, but this recipe calls for equal
parts! I cream the soup with Half and
Half, but whole milk, cream or evaporated milk can certainly be used.
Add 1 to 2 cups of Half and Half and let the soup continue to simmer. The starch from the potatoes should thicken the soup, but if it isn’t thick enough, add instant potato flakes a
Tablespoon at a time until you get the consistency you like.
Acorn Squash and Tomato Soup
I have winter squash sitting on the counter most of
the winter. I use them in lots of ways,
but I first made a version of this soup years ago when I hosted an autumn
luncheon for my girlfriends. Tt was warm
enough to have the event on the back deck.
That time I made all the ingredients from scratch. Now I use a short cut.
There are lots of ways to prepare winter squash. I prefer acorn for this recipe, but it is
equally good using a butternut. The
fastest way to prepare the squash is to simply poke a few holes through the
skin and microwave it. Cook time depends
upon the size of the squash, but ten minutes usually works. Cut the squash in half and let it cool. Remove the seeds and any stringy membrane. Scoop out the flesh and mash it to use in the
soup.
The shortcut for this soup is to simply begin with a
can of Campbells Tomato Bisque. Prepare
it per the instructions on the can. Add
the mashed squash and ½ teaspoon of black pepper and a teaspoon of onion
powder. Stir in a handful of chopped kale and bring to a simmer. Add 1 cup of
Half and Half.
Leek and Potato Soup
I don’t make chicken and dumplings very often. My husband loved them, but he’s gone. My daughter and her husband aren’t crazy
about them, and my granddaughter just decided she might like them again just a
few months ago. I say might like them
‘again’ because she ate so many one time when she was little that she got a
stomachache! Was that more information
than you wanted?
This past week, I was suddenly craving chicken and
dumplings, so I bought a whole chicken and planned my dumpling making day! For me, the broth and the boiled chicken are
as important as the dumpling flavor. I
have to figure out a way to use all that chicken, and I love keeping a couple
cups of the broth to start a pot of soup later on. It is so good.
To make a good stock for dumplings, plan on gently
boiling your chicken for 15 minutes for every pound of chicken. Make sure you wash the chicken inside and
out. If you are lucky enough to get
giblets with your whole chicken, wash those in cold water. You certainly want to add them to the stock pot. Add enough cold water to the stock pot to
cover the chicken. Add an onion cut in
quarters, 2 carrots cut in chunks and 2 stalks of celery cut in chunks. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and another teaspoon
of ground black pepper. A clove of
garlic and a bay leaf will add incredible flavor. When I have fresh sage, I add a stem of the
leaves. My chicken simmered for 3 hours
then I removed all the meat and bones from the stock and set it aside to
cool. I removed 3 cups of the stock
from the pot … 2 cups to freeze for later and 1 cup to cool for the dumpling
dough. I added a pinch of saffron to the
stock and brought it back to a simmer while I prepared the dumpling dough. After the chicken cools enough to handle,
remove the meat from the bones.
To make the dumplings …
Gently beat together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1
egg and 1 cup of warm chicken stock. Don't add boiling hot stock to this
because it will scramble your egg. Let the stock cool a bit before you
add it.
On a floured board, gently knead in a
little extra flour until you can handle the dough. It will be warm and pliable.
Carefully roll the dough to a thickness of about ¼ inch and cut into 2 inch
squares.
I actually use a clean flour sack dish towel to roll
my dumplings on! You can take it outside and shake out the flour when you
are done and throw it in the washing machine.
Drop the dumplings into the simmering broth, cover and
cook for 10 minutes. Add the chicken meat back in after the dumplings are
done.
I don’t add all the chicken back to the pot because
one person can’t eat all that! I freeze
it for use in chicken sandwich salad and a couple casseroles. If you are cooking for a crowd, you might
want to double the dumpling recipe and add back all the meat.
Enjoy!
I recently saw a recipe online for a topping for baked brie
cheese and decided to make my own version.
This is such an easy process. It takes just a few minutes once you’ve roasted the grapes.
Place a cup of whole seedless grapes on a roasting pan. Drizzle them with a little bit of olive oil
and a dash of salt. Roast on 400 degrees
for 15 minutes. Set the grapes aside.
Place a round of brie cheese in an oven proof dish. Score the top of it. Add the roasted grapes to the top. Sprinkle on a few dried cherries and pecan
halves. Drizzle balsamic glaze over the topping. Put in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes,
or in the microwave for 5 minutes. The
topping should be sizzling, and the cheese should be gooey!
Serve with crackers, pita bread or apple slices.
When Joe and I were first married, I delighted in fixing his
favorite meals. I’d mention things that
I knew how to cook, and he’d say “Yes, make that” so I would. He
and I both had grown up with mothers and grandmothers who were good
cooks … and frugal cooks. He used to
talk about having to take bologna sandwiches every day for his school
lunch. I walked two blocks home for
lunch, so we didn’t have that in common, but we did have bologna in common. We also had bologna salad in common. The first time I made it, he was
thrilled. The second time I made it, he
pulled a prank on his least favorite aunt.
His Aunt Billie and her husband came to visit on a
Sunday. They just dropped by to see
where we lived. In reality, they were
hoping for a free lunch. Billie was an
arrogant woman, and she didn’t hesitate to let her presumed superiority be
known. She went all through the house,
even opened the bedroom closet, and Joe was not happy. Realizing they weren’t going to leave until
we fed them, he suggested that I make them a sandwich for lunch. I was happy to plate bologna salad sandwiches
with chips and a dill pickle spear for each of them. Billie proclaimed that her sandwich was the
best ham salad she had ever had. Joe
smiled ear to ear as he told her, “That’s because it’s bologna salad.”
Growing up, my mother had certain menu items that she
repeated every week. During high school
football season, Friday nights included supper of hamburgers, chips and
soda. That was a treat because of the
soda and chips, but I’m not sure it was the best meal for my football playing
brothers.
Lunch meat sandwiches weren’t on the menu much because Daddy
wanted cooked food. However, in the heat
of the summer months especially when Mother was in the midst of canning,
bologna salad was a favorite Saturday lunch menu item. Think of those primary color Pyrex mixing
bowls. The biggest yellow one was filled
with potato salad. The green one was
filled with bologna salad for sandwiches.
The red one was filled with creamy slaw and the blue one remained empty
to hold any leftovers! In those days, we
didn’t have food processors, so we chopped everything for the bologna salad with an old fashioned food
grinder. At our house, the only place we
could fasten the grinder was on a basement step! Our kitchen counters and kitchen table did
not have an edge where it would work. It
was a project!
Mother came from a big German family, and I suspect her
recipe for bologna salad came from one of her many relatives. Wurst Salat is identified as a recipe that
came to America with German immigrants.
Families in many regions, heavily populated with families of German
descent, enjoy it still today. It is
kind of like potato salad in that every family has its own recipe! The variations are many.
Bologna originated in Italy, specifically in its namesake city, Bologna. We know it as Mortadella. It is made from beef and pork and is studded with little chunks of fat. Italian immigrants brought it to America, shared it with German sausage makers and bologna was Americanized to be what we love today. In Germany, Wurst Salat is made differently in regions. It is typically julienned. Strips of Swiss cheese, pickles, onion and sometimes pimento are added. Dressings range from a vinegar and oil base to a mayonnaise base. A quick internet search will lead you to recipes and pictures. It is served as a salad with rustic bread, boiled eggs and radishes.
We see this style of salad in German communities in the
United States. We find it made with
German bologna which has a nice garlic flavor
Amish and Mennonite communities favor Lebanese bologna, which originated
in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. This
beef bologna is heavily flavored with spices like black pepper, white pepper, mace
and nutmeg. It is smoked and I think it
is more like a summer sausage than typical bologna.
I’m happy to share my recipe for bologna salad today. We love it on soft white bread and on crackers. My husband could eat a whole sleeve of saltines with bologna salad. I enjoy it for breakfast/brunch on white toast. Find your favorite way to eat it and adjust the recipe to your own tastes. Enjoy!
Use a food processor to prepare these ingredients. Begin by chopping the onion and celery into chunks. Add the bologna and the egg. Continue chopping until it reaches the consistency you desire. Complete the mixing in a bowl. Add the relish, juice, mayonnaise, mustard, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of celery seed. You should adjust the liquid ingredients if the salad is too dry. You can certainly eat this immediately. It is better if you refrigerate it for a couple hours. This will last in the fridge for three days but doesn’t hold up well in the freezer. I have, however, made sandwiches on white bread and frozen them. They are great to take in a packed lunch. Just remove from the freezer in the morning and by lunchtime, they are ready to eat. If the mayonnaise liquifies because of the freezing, I don’t notice it.